NBC has unveiled their new fall schedule and it’s clear that their behemoth hit from last season, This Is Us, is going to be an aggressive player when it returns.
The network announced that This Is Us will now air on Thursdays — part of a very clear pitch to rebuild the former “Must-See TV” night, one of its few problem spots in recent years. This Is Us, which has also been tapped for that choice 2018 Super Bowl platform as the post-game special, will be joined on Thursdays by comedies Will & Grace (returning to its old night as an event series) and modest newcomer Great News — as well as Dick Wolf’s Law & Order: True Crime — The Menendez Murders. Putting all those eggs in the Thursday basket does present one issue for scheduling, however, in the competition of Thursday Night Football on CBS at the top of the season and NBC having its own games later in the fall. NBC Entertainment chairman Robert Greenblatt, speaking with reporters, tried to temper any concerns that all of the interruptions might be problematic for the Big Four’s new No. 1 drama.
“Yes, there will be CBS games opposite our lineup, which there would be no matter what the show will be on for six weeks and then preempted for six weeks. It will come back in January, with a couple weeks of preemptions for Olympics. There’s a little bit of on-again, off-again.”
Elsewhere on the slate, new drama The Brave gets the choice platform of Monday’s post-Voice time slot. That launch pad has had mixed success as an incubator for new dramas, with this year’s freshman crop (Timeless, Taken) retaining a smaller portion of its lead-in and 2015 entry Blindspot not carrying its audience in its own move. Two of those shows, Blindspot and Taken, will now air on the slightly less-pressure night of Friday.
There isn’t an abundance of “new” on the schedule. The Brave is the only true freshman on the schedule, considering the history of Dick Wolf’s Law & Order franchise on the network and the fact that Will & Grace is essentially a ninth season for the comedy that last aired in 2006. That means that most of the tweaks, and there aren’t that many, are focused on returning shows.
For Tuesday, that means comedies Superstore and The Good Place airing after The Voice — and Chicago Fire returning to 10 p.m. On Wednesdays, the ever-softening Blacklist will now start the night at 8 o’clock before mainstays Law & Order: SVU and Chicago P.D. Sunday is obviously never a question for NBC’s fall lineup with TV’s No. 1 franchise in Sunday Night Football. But once the NFL season wraps, NBC did confirm that (for now) the night will be home to Little Big Shots, Ellen’s Game of Games and the third season of Jennifer Lopez’s Shades of Blue.
Left on deck for midseason, with no timing or night planned, are Jason Katims’ drama Rise, Jenna Bans’ Good Girls and Reverie. Returning drama Chicago Med will move to Thursdays at 10 p.m. once Law and Order: True Crime wraps. On the comedy front, A.P. Bio and Champions will also premiere later — as will alternative ventures Chris Hardwick’s The Awesome Show, Neil Patrick Harris’ Genius Junior and Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman’s The Handmade Project.
